FNBS
Raven Maddox: Welcome to the Maddox Morning Podcast. As we greet you this morning across the airwaves and through the internet, the election is a week behind us now. President-elect Jane Allgood’s margin of victory was so large that her supporters are proclaiming she has an absolute mandate to implement everything on her agenda, including something this news commentator finds very concerning.
The clip I’m about to play is from an interview Joseph Porchsmith conducted yesterday with the Security News Channel’s Sean O’Brien.
{Looking off camera to producer}Sally, is it acceptable to start referring to SNC as a state-run news agency? Huh? I think it is. {laughter} Sally is holding up the ‘no comment’ sign. Roll clip, please, Sally.
SNC Sean O’Brien: Congratulations, Mr. Porchsmith, on the chief of staff role. I know you are going to be invaluable to the new president in getting this country back on track. What I find very interesting, from inside sources, is that the Senator, John Taylor from Montana, has declined any cabinet position. This is extremely interesting and highly unexpected.
Porchsmith: That’s correct, Sean. I’ve been authorized to provide some insight on this matter. Taylor will not hold a cabinet position, but he will be very active in the administration.
Look, we have a domestic terrorism problem. That’s a fact. We have unchecked immigration due to the Earth Treaty instituted by past administrations. Moreover, the refugee projects, commonly referred to as Asiatowns, have become de facto no-go zones for law enforcement. They are corrupt cesspools for non-American enterprises, havens for drugs, gangs, and the kind of prostitution you don’t want to talk about.
As the CEO of John Taylor Securities, Senator Taylor has built the most successful private security apparatus the world has ever seen. He has agreed to use his resources, experience, and expertise to establish a new federal law enforcement organization that is going to tackle these problems head-on.
SNC Sean O’Brien: God knows America certainly needs it, Joe. Is there a name for this new initiative? And how do you plan on getting this through the Senate without a super majority?
Porchsmith: Those are good questions. The senator has proposed the name Hammer Force, and he’s going to be the Chief Hammer.
SNC Sean O’Brien {laughs}: I like the sound of that.
Porchsmith: As for Congress, we see no reason to go that route. We believe we possess the constitutional authority to institute this on the executive side as a branch of the DHS.
SNC Sean O’Brien: Now that’s some news I can get behind. We’ll be following this closely, and we wish the senator luck. There are a lot of dents to hammer out…
|clip ends|
Raven Maddox: If that doesn’t send chills down your spine, nothing will. Two and a half months before the inauguration, and this new administration is already shredding the Constitution. Buckle up. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
We’re going to try to gain some perspective by speaking with a few supporters and detractors of the new president. But first, it feels like a jazzy morning. Let’s enjoy a little Miles Davis. This is ‘Violet.’ Pour yourself some coffee, get comfortable. We’ll be right back.
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A Jiffy Stop Morning
Francis slept soundly on the sofa in the television room. He had taken to staying up until the early hours playing the ancient arcade games. Little Joe had presented him with a round key to the quarter compartments and showed him how to run quarters through to get as many credits as he needed.
The Greta had made a stoop for herself on the far wall where she sat cross-legged. The glow of the beer sign above her gave her the aura of a religious statue.
Like all devout Gretas, she was mute. Gwen said she had seen her during Comstock’s aggressive booking procedures. She’d been burned badly, more than likely during that great and tragic fire in a canyon near Modesto, California, when the Santa Ana winds had spread a spark across the largest gathering of Gretas in United States history.
Alan had tried to speak to her on two occasions. Her only response had been to stare at him with her beady eyes through the stretched perforations of the sackcloth veil she’d stitched into the t-shirt around her head. He gave her a pen and a piece of paper to write on, but she let them fall by her feet.
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He got the drift. He knew when women didn’t like him.
“They only sew their words,” Gwen said.
Indeed, she took her sacred seat and started stitching on a square of fabric. When she was done, she limped to where he was sitting at a booth and dropped it in front of him. Then she limped back to her bed.
Man, what have you done?
He looked across at her, but she was lying with her face to the wall. The message was neatly cross-stitched, and the word Man was missing a stitch in its vowel. A mum profanity, no doubt.
He’d read it again and again until he became nauseous with interpretation. He grew angry because it meant nothing. He remembered the schoolboy jokes about the best way to lose your virginity.
“What’d she say? Nothing really!”
“How did she like it? She was speechless.”
“What’s the best part about fucking a Greta? They never ask to cuddle.”
They were a mad cult of harridans, shrill in their silence. A wave of satisfaction washed over him at their fiery tragedy. He added this toxicity to the all-guilt deep inside and pushed it down.
Despite their tactics, they were not wrong. The earth, our mother, was dying.
Man, what have you done?
Gwen had taken up reading trashy novels from the spinning book rack near the restrooms. She was currently on her third romance, which rested in front of her now on the table. The cover displayed a hero with golden locks, and a white shirt ripped open to reveal his impossibly shredded physique as he pulled a buxom damsel out of a bed of thorns and roses.
Alan tried not to look—or at least to appear as though he wasn’t looking—when she was there across the lounge, when she descended the stairs, when she came out of the showers damp and clean, or when she was in the booth, knees drawn to her chest. The sight of her, her cream skin, her pert breasts. He yearned for her touch in a way that an old and impotent man yearned for the fresh young girls of his youth. Before… the hurt, he would have let her know his desire. Now, apart from that one brief encounter—that mercy fuck—he was resigned to his frozen solitude.
Carter Nash worked on Ol’ Betsy. On the outside, the van was a relic from an era long since passed. On the inside, it was an achievement of technology, functionality, and luxury. From what Alan could surmise, Nash had been an engineer of some caliber during his active service days—he’d seen combat but wouldn’t talk about it. The hippie had revamped her from the ground up, starting with the addition of four-wheel drive and hydraulic suspension. Now, with the help of Little Joe, she also had a hacked version of Self-Drive, rendering the rig completely untraceable. The most remarkable feat was that he was able to do all this with an ever-present joint perched between his lips, rolled from his stash of high-quality ganja hidden in a secret compartment beneath Ol’ Betsy’s floor.
Apart from a modest pension, the hippie followed a circuit of independent music festivals, where he’d sell packs of marijuana cigarettes for a tidy sum. He called himself a Weed Elf, or a facilitator of good vibrations.
Little Joe, or LJ as Francis called him, was much more than his façade of an obese truck stop owner. Upon realizing he was stuck with them, he had closed for the season by barring the iron gates leading in and out of his business. He changed the message on the reader board that flashed out toward Highway 93: Too Damn Cold. Closed For Winter. No Service.
Yesterday morning, for the sake of politeness, Alan apologized for ruining his business. The fat man waved his hand and said, “You think I make any money off this place? Now the real work starts!”
The real work, it turned out, was hacking smartphones, computers, or any other technology he could get his hands on so that they could not be tracked by various governmental or corporate surveillance systems. “The trick,” said Little Joe, “is to use the dumb AI to stay one step to the side of the smart AI.” This was an illegal but lucrative occupation in Montana, where most of his customers were conspiracy theorists, off-gridders, and doomsday preppers.
On this particular day, Little Joe was out dropping off a shipment to one of his clients. Alan—while being nosey, both to avoid the boy because of the hope sparked in his mind regarding his birthday and to avoid Gwen because he couldn’t get that night out of his head—discovered a wet bar in the small office room behind the counter. He helped himself to a bottle of potato vodka and left a note and a hundred dollars for Little Joe to find later.
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FNBS
Raven Maddox: That was the great Miles Davis. We are back. Joining us this morning is Hillary Reed, President Knutson’s campaign manager.
What many people don’t know is that Ms. Reed is also a fellow at the Constitutional Center for Democratic Values. She’s an intelligent, articulate woman, even when she’s not shouting at Joseph Porchsmith.
Hillary Reed {laughter}: Oh, that man just makes me devolve into an animal. Thank you, Raven. I hope my shouting days are over. Please, call me Hillary. I’m moving out of politics, you know.
Raven Maddox: Hillary, thank you. And I’ll believe it when I see it. So, you saw that SNC clip. What do you make of this new Hammer Force? Such a cringe-worthy name.
Hillary Reed: I’m aghast, to be honest. And I don’t know why there’s not more of an outcry by Americans who are in a position to say something. Look at what’s happening. There’s the controversial AI tech, the so-called Third Eye surveillance network, which has refused to comply with the guidelines of Noble AI set forth by Peter Kim. These are globally undisputed guidelines essential for keeping AI in check. And now this news of a shadowy police force that Porchsmith admits will operate outside of constitutional oversight. I am aghast, Raven.